#6 New City, New Friends

I might reiterate that I was a total mid-western American. The only fish I had eaten before the summer of 1965, when I married into an English family, was Lake Erie perch. The rice I ate was mostly rice pudding. Life in London was a life enriched by students from all over the British Empire. Until about this time, if you lived in the colonies you had a right to come to England. The building in which we were staying was comprised of many Indian families, quite a few Pakistani couples, several from Guyana (British) in South America, and one young, green, American couple (us!).

We soon made friends with a young fellow from Guyana named Derek. He was great! He and Eric hit it off well, and Derek included us with his other Guyanese friends. Derek was a student at the nearby university--and engineering student like Eric. But many of his other friends were learning to be tailors on in famous companies throughout London. Shops in Soho, Carnaby Street, etc. were the top of the fashion world for men back then. One evening they all got talking and decided they would love to make sure Eric had a London tailored sport coat. They would do it themselves for basically the cost of materials. They figured they could handle this for only $200--a total bargain at that time! But we were poor college students. We talked it over, decided that while this was "a steal" we would have forego to the honor. I have often regretted our decision. But Eric would probably have had to wear the same jacket for a decade to offset using that portion of our budget!

Derek told us about his first days in London. He came from a town in Guyana. There, in the tropics, the only chimney he had ever seen belonged to the local bakery. When he got to London and saw all the chimneys he thought to himself, "Man! Look at all these bakeries!" We laughed a lot as we talked over initial impressions in new places.

Derek was engaged to a young woman from his home town. She, too, was in London. L. was tiny, cute, bubbly, and very practical. As their wedding day approached, we received an invitation. We also were willing to help in any way we could--after all, we had only been married one year ourselves. Well, we were taken up on the offer. I helped at the florist--totally out of my league!!! I did not know what was proper in London and was a bit overwhelmed to learn that I would help pick out the greens, etc., and then also help arrange them for the reception!

The reception was to be held in the Victorian dining area of the hotel we lived in. The hotel had seen grander days and this was still evident in a dusty, worn out way. One of Derek's other student friends was somehow related the the hotel, restaurant, chef field. From him I learned to cut vegetables to be pretty (we basically sliced them on a plate in Lafayette, Indiana in the 60's), and arrange all the other food.

The wedding was held in an Anglican church near the London University. For USA mid-west weddings at this time, men wore white dinner jackets in the summer. Not in London! Here it was pin-striped tux with tails and a formal, British tie. Very posh, as Auntie Dorothy would say. Someone had rented or borrowed a long, vintage, convertible Rolls Royce for the bride and groom. It was driven by the Major. As befits a world-class city and college students, the rest of us walked to the church and then back to the hotel for the reception. Another first for me: all the toasting with champagne, the formality of a London reception, and the fun of getting to clean it all up afterwards! British humor, which takes some adapting to, was abundant that day!

Derek and his wife later moved to Toronto, Canada. We visited their family in 1972 when we were attending the Toronto Institute of Linguistics in preparation for moving to Africa.